The song of the Summer

While I was listening to this podcast I was really interested in how much money went in to making songs that didn't even end up being a hit song. In the podcast when they were talking the competition with songs Rihanna song "Umbrella" was a number one hit. Then two years ago in 2009 "I gotta a feeling" by Black Eyed Peas was the number one hit of the summer. Then after that was "California Girls" by Katy Perry. But the one song that this pod casts really focused on was "Man Down" by Rhianna.

What suprised me is how much work, effort, time, money, patients, etc. goes into making one song and thats not even making it a hit song. In the podcast they explaied the writing camps which is a camp usually for two weeks where they bring in the best producers and writers to help with the making of this song. Usually the cost per day is around $2,000-$2,500 and maybe there would be 10 rooms which need to be occupied for two weeks.

In the writing camps how its done is that there are song writers and producers in the studio and they play beats that they think would be good for the song without lyrics and once they have one they come up with a melody first by humming something that they think would be worth it. What surprised me was that Rihanna still has no part in this or knows whats going on. In the podcast they said it took 12-13 minutes to put the song together which in total was 200 grand. They made the whole album in two weeks.

So, $200,000 divided by 11 singles on the track equals $18,000. But that $18,000 is only for the fancy dinners and rooms within the writing camps. Its another $15,000 for the writer and $20,000 for the music so in total now its $53,000 for "Man Down" so far and still there is no Rihanna.

Another thing that i found interesting was that when Rihanna is introduced to the song and she is in the studio actually singing it its like a party. there could be 30-40 people in the room with strobe lights, incessant burning, and even doves. But the person who put this all together was the vocal producer which costs $10-15,000.

Then the song has to get mixed and mastered which is another 10K. This whole producing activity is so much money to not even know if it is going to be published or not which is shocking to me. So far the total is $78,000 to have a song but not a hit. The next thing that is important for the song is its radio play which can be scandalous sometimes. Many people have paid the radio an amount of money to play the song on radio as its number one hit but now it has become illegal to pay someone to put the music on the radio.Why? Because it can be considered fraud and pay for play is deception. If a radio station does take money to play a song you are suppose to announce that you got donated the money to play the song or something like that.


The grand total all together is 1.25 million dollars to make a hit and a music video. But a shocking fact that I did not know before listening to this podcast was that "Man Down" was not a hit on the radio and that the song did not sell that well. The only reason why it sold was because the song was on the album and 1.3 million copies of the album sold.

                           

                                Adele is moving in and is becoming the top radio hits so far.